Ravenna!!!

Ever since I learned the place existed--and that was Way Back in college, I have longed to go to Ravenna.  Today the dream was fulfilled.
And did it answer your expectations?
Oh yes!
Ravenna is about two and a half hours from Bologna by train--east nearly to the coast.  The train ride was prettier and more interesting than the one to Modena.  From the window I saw the wooded Emilian hills, freshly plowed fields, a small, spikey trees covered in pink blossoms--no leaves--just the blossoms.  I do not know what kind they are, but they are cultivated in orchards.
Ravenna is a lovely place and easy to navigate.  I got a combination ticket for five sights, hoping I'd have time to see them all, and as they are close together I did.  The combo ticket is a very good deal at 11.50 euro, because if you paid single entry for each one it would come out to twice that, and every sight is very worth seeing.  Ravenna is the capital of Byzantine Art.  Most of it in Constantinople was pried out or white washed.
I began with San Vitale.  Built in the shape of an octogon, it is a centrally planned church whose exterior gives no hint of the wonders within.  Now I have seen photographs, and I have taught these mosaics, but nothing prepares one for the real thing.  Even in the dimly lit church, the light glitters and dances off the glass, giving the figures a life no photograph could ever catch.  San Vitale is famous for Justinian and Theodora and their attendants.  They never came here, but their images survive nowhere else.  The rest of the church is just as glorious.
I visited the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia--also encrusted with fabulous mosaics.  She was the sister to one emperor and mother to another.  In between time she was captured by barbarians and ended up marrying one of them.  The tribe returned her to Rome when her husband died, and her brother fixed her up again.
There's a museum with other Byzantine Art--carvings, the archbishop's throne, intricately carved in ivory which I think is a must see as well.  I also visited the Neroian Baptistry--also full of wonderful mosaics.  I think the male saints were standing in contraposto, which surprised me greatly.
I paid my respect to Dante Aligheri, who is buried in San Francesco, having lived as a bitter exile from his home city Florence.  All he did was take the Tuscan dialect and turn it into Italian.
I saved San Apollinare Nuovo for last.  It is a basilica in the Early Christian style with aisles marked out by a colonnade.  There's a finely restored coffered ceiling--and oh yes--mosaics.  The famous one is of the three wise men proffering gifts to the Christ Child seated on his mother's lap.  A procession of female saints follows.  On the opposite wall is the adult Christ Enthroned with Angels, and a procession of male saints.  Just glorious.
The sun came out for me in Ravenna, and although it was still cold, it was warm enough for gelato.  I had more niocchiola and amarena, but this time I added chocolate.
Back in Bologna the cold and gloom returned, but I carried the light of the mosaics home with me.